The present invention relates to a collapsible structure for maintaining the stability of articles and the method of making such a structure.
At present, no provision is made in passenger vehicles for maintaining packages or containers in a stabilized condition during movement. Therefore, when the vehicle is suddenly started or stopped or it negotiates a tight curve, packages stored in either the passenger compartment or the trunk of the vehicle will move around, and the contents of the packages fall out. This is particularly true with grocery bags, which can either be in paper bags, which can stand up but have very little stability, or plastic bags, which can neither stand up on their own or maintain stability.
Package and container holding devices have been proposed in the art, but these have numerous disadvantages. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,244 discloses a collapsible structure, which is complex in its construction and takes up a considerable space in a vehicle even when it is collapsed. U.S. Pat. No. 3,986,656, while disclosing a device having a simpler structure, must be disassembled and reassembled after each use and when it is to be used again. Other structures of this type, which suffer from these and other disadvantages, are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,172,538; 4,376,520; 4,273,167; 4,267,996; 4,069,993; 4,540,213; 2,149,042; 4,226,348; 4,746,041; 1,500,067; and 2,874,885.